OpenAI partners with Microsoft to develop 'cloud brains'

The non-profit AI research firm OpenAI has partnered with Microsoft to use its Azure cloud service to power its experiments.

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The non-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research firm OpenAI has agreed to partner with Microsoft to develop 'cloud brains' to test its experiments.

The organisation, which is backed by Elon Musk, has signed an agreement that will allow it to run large-scale experiments using the company's Azure cloud services. OpenAI aims to discover more about deep learning and AI, while Microsoft will use the partnership to create new tools and technologies that utilise AI.

OpenAI was one of the first adopters of Microsoft's Azure N-Series Virtual Machines service that was designed to handle the intense computing workloads that are needed to run simulations and deep learning projects. The service is powered by Nvidia's graphics chips and will be made generally available starting in December.

In a blog post, OpenAI explained how it will utilise the power of Microsoft's Azure N-Series Virtual Machines in its upcoming experiments, saying: “In the coming months we will use thousands to tens of thousands of these machines to increase both the number of experiments we run and the size of the models we train.”

Its new partnership with Microsoft will enable the non-profit to scale up its operations and begin to make advancements in both deep learning and AI.

OpenAI was initially founded in December of last year with the aim of creating AI that could augment mankind's existing capabilities. The non-profit will continue to offer its software under open-source licensing to make it easier for anyone to run their own large-scale AI workloads using the cloud.